


Divided We Stand

by vextant



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner-centric, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Missing Scene, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 13:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19133203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vextant/pseuds/vextant
Summary: In the end it's Bruce, not Tony, that calls Steve for help. He knows they're not  a team anymore, but he's stranded in New York City with no wallet and no plan and the apocalypse bearing down, and now Tony's rocketed himself into space going after his kid protege and some wizard. Miraculously, Steve answers and agrees to meet at the Complex upstate.Bruce just has to find a way to get himself there.





	Divided We Stand

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a collaboration for the Iron Man Big Bang 2018 and features beautiful art from [insideoutnose](https://insideoutnose.tumblr.com/). Ever since Infinity War came out, I've been curious as to how the phone call between Bruce and Steve went, so I jumped at the chance to explore that. 
> 
> But first, some specific content warnings (no spoilers — if you'd like spoiler-ful specific warnings, please see the end notes!):  
> > A character has a few short thoughts that can be read as suicidal  
> > There is a mention of brief, non-permanent character death  
> > A character has an anxiety/panic attack, including nausea

 

Bruce calls Steve right there on the street. It’s the only number listed, and it’s not like Bruce has many other options right now.

The little phone feels strange against his ear; he doesn’t know if it’s because of how long it’s been since he’s used a flip phone or because of how long it’s been since he used a proper Earth phone at all. Really, it’s been a long time since he’s used a proper Earth anything.

As it rings, he leans up to watch a small rocket streak further up into the atmosphere. It’s got to be Tony. Bruce shield his eyes from the sun’s glare just to watch the little light speed up and blink out of view.

He swallows.

The phone keeps ringing.

His stomach feels heavy, pulling him down, weighing him until his knees feel like buckling and he wants nothing than to burrow underground and choke on dirt until Hulk has no choice but to show his big ugly face. His mind is still swimming with everything from the last hour — was it even an hour?

Wizards. They exist. Tony has some kind of red-and-blue Tarzan-type child protege now. More aliens. And the Avengers are —

— the Avengers —

The Avengers _broke up_. Bruce didn’t think that was possible, not after they’d saved the world together — twice, even though once was technically of their making.

He’d never even found out what had happened after Ultron. Hulk was too hellbent on jettisoning them into space. It’s a lot like what Tony’s doing right now, except in Bruce’s opinion Tony’s got a much better reason, to try and save the world again. Bruce hopes he’ll get a chance to find out what exactly he missed.

Most of all, he hopes Tony doesn’t take two years to come back.

“ _Hello?_ ” A gruff voice on the other end of the line snaps him back to the present, to the ground.

Bruce takes a deep breath before it all comes tumbling out. “Steve? It — it’s Bruce, you’ve gotta help — there’s no time, we’ve gotta find Vision — you know where he is? Right now? ‘Cus we’ve gotta—”

“ _Bruce_?”

He’s not sure if Steve sounds confused, relieved, or angry. The signal isn’t all that great — he must be far. Or the phone is a piece of shit. Regardless, Bruce manages a smile. “Yeah, yeah. Steve, it’s me, you gotta listen, there’s a problem —”

“ _Bruce, is Tony there_?”

 

 

Bruce looks back up. He’s honestly not sure how to answer that question; he’s only been back on the correct planet for what, two hours? Except it seems like now, instead of him Hulk leaving everybody else, everybody else has left him. He also doesn’t know what kind of terms Steve left on — other than that they were bad — and he doesn’t know who left with him. Bruce _does_ know that Tony tends to force people away, no matter how much he cares about them. It took Bruce a long time and a lot of energy to figure his way past that sarcastic, standoffish display Tony puts on. Maybe Steve just up and decided he’d had enough — is that what happened, or was it something else? Was it some kind of messy combination?

Steve does seem genuinely concerned. Although, Steve is Steve, and therefore always seems genuine — in his praise, in his friendship, in his anger. But Bruce doesn’t want to step in other peoples’ beef too much, not when the world’s on the line. Again.

“He, uh — he can’t come — he’s, uh. He’s busy.” Damn it, Banner — and now he feels instantly guilty lying to Steve, even though it technically isn’t a lie as much of a re-framing of known facts. “There’s an emergency. Where’s Vision? Tony said he lost him.”

Steve is also silent a moment, which is how Bruce knows that he’s also weighing how much to tell. Captain America cannot lie — but Steve Rogers can, and he’s unexpectedly good at it. He does it all the time. Or he did. So Bruce takes Steve’s silence too much to heart, in a way, because Bruce doesn’t know how to convey to him that even if they’re no longer a team, they can still be on the same side.

“ _He’s not with me, but I can get him. Bruce, what’s happening_?”

He’s got to get off the street. That’s his next thought, and it takes over his head — he can’t tell Steve anything until he gets off the street.

Bruce hurries to the sidewalk, back the way he came. It feels like his brain is spinning in his skull — he doesn’t know where the tall wizard went, and the second one, Wong, said that he had to make sure something remained guarded. Their headquarters, probably. He has a flash of guilt over smashing in the window, even though it wasn’t technically his fault.

But the wizards can teleport — right? That’s what he saw? They could teleport him right to Steve.

He needs to get back to where he landed. That big museum building, where the wizards were, the S—, God, what was it, the Solarium, the Sanatorium, the Sandbox, the _Sanctum_. Back to the Sanctum, Steve grabs Vision, Wong teleports Bruce to wherever Steve and Vision, Wong teleports Bruce to wherever Steve and Vision are and then they go from there.

Luckily, the swath of destruction is an easy trail to follow. He backtracks through Washington Square Park —

“ _Bruce_?”

Jesus, he’d nearly forgotten he was still on the phone with Steve. Bruce fumbles the little flip phone, switching from one ear to the other like that’s suddenly going to help his atrocious sense of direction.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry — I’m — I’ve gotta get to the wizards’, you need to get Vision and keep him close —”

“ _Bruce, where is Tony_ .” The tone of the question, where it isn’t a question at all, but a demand — suddenly and sharply reminds Bruce of the difference between talking to Steve and talking to Captain America. It’s not Cap he’s talking to now, though — Cap makes demands, sure, but he interjects them into those big speeches, the ones that make you want to pitch in and help because it’d be very right and good and just of you. Steve, this new Steve, this two-years-gone-by-Steve, is _angry_. He’s furious, and he’s only barely keeping it beneath the surface. Probably for Bruce’s sake.

Bruce knows better than anyone what that’s like.

“He’s gone, Steve — well, not gone gone, he went chasing after them—”

“ _After who_?” Does Steve not know? Bruce is sure the attack is all over the news by now. Wherever Steve is, he’s way off the grid.

“The — there were aliens. Again, here, in New York.”

Steve curses. It makes Bruce flinch. “ _How bad_?”

“No, they — they got what they came for, the wizards had a Stone, Vision’s get another one, the one in his head —” Bruce is fairly certain he’s on the right street, he recognizes these buildings. There’s a street sign that says Bleeker. He commits that to memory as best he can. “ — you gotta get him, Steve, keep him safe, totally underground, maybe if Natasha— ”

“ _What do they want with it?_ ”

“It’s — There’s no time, but it’s bad. Get to the Complex, quick as possible, I’ll meet you there.”

For the second time, Steve hesitates on the other end. “Okay.”

By the time it hits Bruce, Steve’s already hung up, — and what a fucking _moron_ he is, offering to meet Steve at the Avengers’ home base when he knows what happened. Well, he doesn’t know _what_ happened, but he knows that _something_ happened, and it’s rather obvious in hindsight that it would’ve been easier for Steve and whoever else to leave rather than forcing Tony, who bankrolled everything down to the property deed, off-base.

He doesn’t feel too bad about it though, because whoever’s feelings got hurt can suck it up for the end of the universe as they know it.

Bruce half-jogs to the big wooden doors of the Sanctum and knocks.

There’s anxiety burning hot through every fiber of of his being, like he can feel every eye in New York City on him — even though he’s almost certain that he’s the only one left on this street. He doesn’t know exactly what he needs to do next, not sure what’s involved in teleportation, does he have to be a trained wizard to do it? Are there special ingredients he’s going to have to find or something, because he doesn’t have the time for some kind of bullshit fetch quest.

He glances over his shoulder. There’s a relatively unharmed Ford Fiesta that looks like it might be blue under all that dust.

Once, years ago — _years_ ago, wow — Barton offered to help Bruce with learning a “more practical skillset”, as he put it. Bruce calls it spy stuff, which is not even in a ten mile radius of his wheelhouse. It didn’t seem important at the time. Between Barton and Natasha, and even Steve knowing the basics of lockpicking, Bruce thought his own learning would be rather redundant.

Now, he really, really, regrets not knowing how to hotwire a car. He wouldn’t even know where to start.

After another knock, there’s still no one answering. He looks for the doorknob, but there isn’t one. There doesn’t seem to be a seam between the panels, either — the whole doorway resembles a very ornately carved wooden wall.

The message is clear — the Sanctum is closed. One a related note, Bruce has decided that he very much prefers science over magic.

This leaves him with a very different problem — getting to a super-secret base in the middle of upstate New York with no vehicle, no license, and no money. And then getting _into_ said super-secret base, with no clearance except his voice and his rugged good looks. He doesn’t even have his glasses.

He wants to kick a tire and punch through a wall and scream his throat raw. But he won’t do any of those things, because he’s not a child and he’s certainly not the Hulk — and the fact that he and the monster inside his head aren’t even on speaking terms is a whole other _thing_ that he doesn’t have the time or the energy for at the moment.

Which is why Bruce is stuck looking desperately around the street, like the solution to his problems will just drive up like a taxi with a broken sideview mirror and a driver with no place to be for the next few hours, but no one’s here.

The flip phone is heavy in his pocket. He pulls it out and stares at it, because maybe it holds more than just a single contact with a bitter, jaded Steve Rogers on the other end.

Amazingly, an idea hits him, and he starts dialing before he can question it. He doesn’t know why he didn’t think of it before.

But he hesitates.

If there would be a problem with meeting at the Complex, Steve would’ve told him, right? After all, he knows nothing about the “breakup” — and while to him it sounds more like Steve and Tony broke up and took the team down with them, the fact that Bruce knows absolutely no details bothers him immensely. He really just hopes that no one died over it.

Dialing the number to the Complex feels like a risk, but he does it anyway. Honestly, he’s probably lucky he remembers it. There’s been a couple of times that, after an Incident, Hulk fades away and he-himself-Bruce-Banner breaches the surface only to find large black gaps in his memory. Sometimes it takes whole minutes or even longer to recall where or ever who he is — once, Tony said, it had taken him over four hours to speak at all.

But that number is still there, in the back of his mind.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. picks up immediately. Her chipper voice rings in his ears like the notes of a great symphony, even though she’s only reading the automated menu. _If you have an access code, press six._

He presses six. He thinks. The buttons are so, so tiny, and he doesn’t have his glasses. How did any of them ever survive the 2000s?

_Please state your access code._

Oh, here’s the real test. The rest of the team have photographic memories, are geniuses and spies and supersoldiers and literal, actual gods. But for the designated disheveled scientist type, memorizing access codes is not a very strong suit.

Bruce holds the microphone end of the phone closer to his mouth. “Access code: Vee-Oh-Arr-Ee-Cee, uh, Rho.” There’s a little beep, meaning that the request for vocal recognition has been accepted. “Uh, oh. Oh! Ae-Vee-Ohhhh…Five! Bruce Banner!”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. doesn’t respond. It shouldn’t take her this long to process, should it? He’s only been gone — oh, God, what if he’s been written out of the system —?!

 _Voice file accepted_ . _Welcome back, Dr. Banner. How can I help you?_

His sigh of relief brings oxygen flooding back to his brain and lungs. “H-hi, F.R.I.D.A.Y., hi. Can you connect me to whoever’s there right now? It’s urgent.”

_Of course, Dr. Banner. Paging Colonel Rhodes._

“Thank God. Thank you, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

The line rings. Bruce starts walking, although he’s not entirely sure where he’s mean to be going. His legs are just taking him somewhere — he probably needs it, too, he has a feeling that if he stayed in one place at the moment, he’d be bouncing off the walls.

It connects so suddenly that almost isn’t ready for the barrage of, “ _Bruce?! Holy_ **_shit_ ** _, what the hell are you —_ ”

“Hi. Hi! I’m, uh, back, I can’t really — explain, right now, but I’m back, there’s a bit of a situation —”

“ _Lay it on me_ ,” Rhodey says. His fearlessness is so much more refreshing than Bruce expected. “ _Wait, where are you_?”

“Uh.” Bruce looks around. To be honest, even when he lived in New York he almost never came this far south. “Oh. Greenwich, I think?”

“ _London_?”

“No, New York. And I gotta get there quick, before Steve gets there.”

“ _Steve’s with you_?” Rhodey seems a little affronted. What the hell could’ve happened to polarize everybody like this?

“No. But he’s coming there, to the Complex. Listen, it’s — it’s a fuckin’ mess, man, you know — you know that stone in Vision’s head, right?”

“ _Big and yellow, yeah_.”

Bruce explains everything as clearly as he can. As much as he remembers. Now that there’s a plan in place, now that he knows — he thinks, he hopes — that Steve’s going to get eyes on Vision, it’s almost cathartic to let everything out, everything he felt he had to hold back while on the phone with Steve because there was no time. While the clock is obviously still ticking now, his anxiety has dialed down to a point where he can generally explain what’s happening. It’s hard not to sound like a doomsday prepper, but it’s the only way — he cannot emphasize enough that this could be a world-ending event. And now the Time Stone’s gone too — that’s three gone. There’s only three left, and they only know where one of them is. Well, almost — they know Steve, who supposedly knows where Vision is.

That though catches him off guard. What kind of a world did Bruce drop back into, where he’s not even sure if he can trust Steve?

Rhodey is silent on the other end. It seems he doesn’t really know how to take it either, even though Bruce is the one who saw it, saw everything.

He watched the Asgardian Statesman get blasted to bits and then boarded. Thor was quick — Thor is always quick — but he, Hulk-he, wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t good enough to keep Heimdall safe, to keep Thor safe. Loki too, he supposes, but he suspects that didn’t rank very high on Hulk’s priorities.

Hulk was nice enough to let him watch that whole thing through rage-colored glasses. It was different than on Sakaar. On Sakaar, it felt like he was sleeping, namely, that he didn’t feel anything, and had only known that time had passed when he woke up on _another planet_ and Thor had told him it’d been years.

“ _Shit_.” It’s all Rhodey can say. Bruce doesn’t blame him.

“Yeah.”

There’s more silence. He wants to ask about the split, wants to ask about what happened that was so bad and irrevocable that Steve had just packed up and left altogether. He doesn’t know what happened to Ultron, to Sokovia after the Avengers finished. He doesn’t know who’s alive, who’s dead, who’s where — he doesn’t know who the President of the United States is. He didn’t even get to vote. It like he’s been in a coma of the worst kind, and everything’s come out topsy-turvy. It’s like — well, it reminds him of being recruited out of Calcutta and brought onto a flying aircraft carrier. There’s a whole new set of rules, and no one bothered to lend him the manual.

“ _…Did Steve tell you where he is_?”

Bruce shakes his head before remembering he’s on the phone. “Uh, no. Why, do you know?”

“ _No. I didn’t — I didn’t know if he gave you an E.T.A_.”

There’s gotta be more to it than that, but Bruce decides to let it slide. Plenty of time to sort all of this personal stuff out once this big, apocalyptic problem is handled. “No, he didn’t.”

“ _Alright, well, then let’s get you here. You said you’re in Greenwich Village, right? What do you have on you?_ ”

“Just the phone.” Bruce looks down at himself. Just the suggestion of having someone in his corner is enough to make him smile. “Oh, uh, and my clothes, this time, thank God.”

It doesn’t get much of a laugh, but Rhodey’s not much of a laughter. The breathy one-beat chuckle is enough. “ _I’m happy for you. Can you call a rideshare? I can give you the team account for the credit card_.”

“Oh, it isn’t — it’s a flip phone.” As he says it, the sudden weirdness hits him. Why did _Tony_ have a flip phone in the first place? Why was Steve the only number in it? Jesus Christ, there’s so much that he doesn’t know, and Tony’s not here to give the verbose, TMI-riddled answers he’s actually kind of craving.

“ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah.”

That seems to stump Rhodey, but not for long. “ _Maybe a bus?_ ”

Bruce looks longingly as a the little Ford Fiesta, knowing in his heart that it wasn’t meant to be. Not like Colonel Rhodes was ever going to walk him through an explicitly criminal act in the first place. He sighs. “Yeah. Can you look up the closest station?”

“ _On it._ ”

Rhodey puts the call on speaker, and Bruce forces himself to take a breath. Forces it way down deep into his lungs, packing more air in than he thought he could, and letting it all out as slowly as possible. Maybe there’s a marginal chance that they don’t all die from this. Maybe Bruce gets a chance to see his friends again. Maybe he and Hulk get a chance to work it out.

The typing and clicking on the phone line pulls him back before he can fall down that rabbit hole too far. He imagines that Rhodey’s in the war room, typing on his “old-fashioned” laptop that was probably released only the year or so before. Tony always hates whatever technology Rhodey buys for himself because it all inevitably still has physical buttons, which Tony thinks the world as a whole needs to move past. The image, memory, whatever, of them squabbling brings a small, relieved smile to Bruce’s face.

“ _Alright, nearest bus station is up near Penn Station. How quick can you get there?_ ”

That’s information that Bruce hasn’t had to use in _years_. His mental map of New York is so decayed and tattered, he doesn’t even know where to start. Penn Station’s north of him, there’s that much that he knows, but getting more specific than that is … going to be a challenge. “Uh, probably half an hour on the subway?”

It’s as good as guess as he’s got. Thirty minutes is a reasonable amount of time to get uptown during a catastrophic event, right? No traffic.

“ _Yeah, but you don’t have a card or anything on you, right?_ ”

“Uhhh,” Bruce pats himself down like his wallet circa 2015, full of access and identity and bank cards, has suddenly appeared in one of his pockets, “Right. Right, I don’t.”

“ _So, it’s gonna take you like an extra fifteen minutes just to get a card. Just start walking, I’ll talk with you._ ”

“Thanks.” He stops and re-evaluates. He’s totally been going the wrong direction. Luckily, there’s no one around to see him turn on his heel and start scurrying the other way. North. Good job, Banner. Could have been a professional navigator, but no, radiology just called too strongly.

“ _Let me know if you’re lost. I’ve got the map right here_.”

“I’m good. Head north. Find Penn Station. Hope the buses are still running. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“ _What exactly happened there? The news is saying ‘extraterrestrial event’._ ”

Rhodey’s definitely in the war room, then. The big screen is rigged to show as many as sixteen streamed sources concurrently. More than a dozen broadcasts, from all over the country, each trying to get the facts out before the others. Great. This is going to be a bigger story than any of them would be able to cover on their own, and with no Avengers to control —

Bruce has no time to worry about public relations, but it nags at him as he makes his way uptown. Without Tony, there’s no way for Bruce to contact Pepper, which means he has no way to throttle this before word _really_ gets out and people start to panic. He hopes that’s what Rhodey was doing when he called.

Look at him, thinking like he’s still on a team.

For just a moment he contemplates asking Rhodey what happened. Maybe Rhodey was privy to it, but then again, maybe he wasn’t — after all, Tony and Steve are both egoists in their own ways. Maybe they all were never really meant to be a team at all. That was his own first thought, way back when, when they were abrasive, volatile, discordant. That first battle in New York was really the only time they’d all ever gotten along, and Bruce himself hadn’t even been there for most of it.

Later, Natasha had admitted it. After New York, before Sokovia, when they’d all still labored under the lofty ideals of S.H.I.E.L.D. — the team had been a band-aid. A last resort. The Avengers had been designed in someone else’s image, even, built from Fury’s own recollections of one of his more memorable missions as a young agent. The Avengers were a myth, a hope that Earth could handle whatever threats the greater universe could throw at it.

Bruce has been out in the greater universe now. Lived up there, out there, eaten and slept and lived and breathed and died. He knows that they aren’t ready.

But for all his cynicism, he knows that they still have to try. They might be the only ones who will.

“ _Bruce_?”

Has he always been this out of it? His mind’s all over, like he should be writing out equations on glass, on windows or a mirror. Which is something he’s actually done once or twice — but right now he doesn’t even know any of the variables.

“Yeah, sorry, sorry, I’m here.”

“ _How you feeling_?”

Bruce’s first instinct is to snarl at him. He feels defensive, is how he feels, because the monster who shares his body has stolen two years of his life and abandoned him in a fight that might cost them everything and it's these _shitty_ circumstances that he's returned to. He's frustrated that he has to watch everyone else walk on eggshells again, that he can't trust ever trust anyone's kindness or intentions because he is a very easy man to weaponize — but not anymore, not while Hulk has decided he's too good to try to save the world. Meanwhile it's _Bruce's_ emotions that get shoved in the lockbox. They're pushed aside for later or for never at all, while his own team breaks themselves up over something he doesn’t even have a goddamn clue about.

“Fine.” He says curtly.

“ _Bruce —_ ”

“I’m _fine_.”

“ _Alright. Keep me updated on your location._ ” There’s a lot that Rhodey doesn’t have to say, and Bruce appreciates that. Rhodey trusts him to handle himself.

He wishes he trusted _himself_ to handle himself. He almost wishes Hulk was in charge right now, because he’s so fucking lost, he doesn’t know this part of the city, doesn’t know why Tony went supersonic into space, doesn’t know why the Avengers split, doesn’t know why Hulk won’t even fucking _speak_ to him —

“Oh,” He says, before he can stop himself.

“ _Oh, what?_ ”

“I’m here. A-at the station.”

 

  


Bruce has nothing in his pockets — no wallet, no I.D., no money — but the bus clerk can’t seem to get it through his head that _that’s not important right now_. Rhodey’s still on the line, Bruce has the tiny flip phone pressed to his shoulder, gripped tight in his hand and it’s taking a lot not to just crush it under his own power. He doesn’t even think he would need Hulk for that one.

“Sir, it’s company policy. You need money to pay the fare, and the fare is what gets you a ticket.” The clerk says slowly, like explaining it to a frustrated child, or someone unstable.

Is he unstable right now?

“Look,” he chuckles, even though it’s not funny — it’s a defense mechanism because he’s barely keeping himself in check at the moment, “I don’t like to play this card, I really, _really_ don’t. But — do you — do you recognize me? Am I familiar, at all?”

“Sir, we see a lot of people —”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean, I’m — I’m Bruce Banner. I’m an Avenger.”

There’s not even a full beat of silence before the guy deadpans, "Oh, the dead guy? That was a couple years ago, buddy —”

“Well, obviously I’m not, and I didn’t!” Bruce can hear Rhodey squawking on the phone and lifts it to his ear.

“ _—lemme talk to him, hand me over, I’m gonna make sure this guy knows it’s an emergency._ ”

“Here,” says Bruce, thrusting the phone at the clerk, “Please, just — here.”

The clerk sighs, nostrils flaring, but takes it. Bruce can hear Rhodey laying into him almost immediately, but can’t make out any specific words. Unfortunately, the clerk doesn’t look phased.

Someone else taps him on the shoulder. Great. He’s holding up the line, he knows, but he figures New York owes him just the slightest bit of patience after all the bullshit he’s been through today, so he ignores it.

In front of him, the clerk sighs and actually visibly rolls his eyes, “Believe me, sir, I could if I would, but unfortunately I have no way to confirm your, or … ‘Dr. Banner’s’ identity —”

“Dr. Banner?” The new voice is soft, behind him. A woman’s. Bruce turns to face her — she’s shorter and nervous-looking, with glasses and thick brown hair braided back. “I — here.”

She holds out a ticket to him. Her own duffel bag is sitting next to her, ratty and dirty like she didn’t know she’d be traveling. Bruce stares at the ticket in his hand — direct to Albany. Not quite the direction he needs to go, but it’ll get him much closer.

“I overheard you saying you needed to get upstate.” The woman says, a little shy. “You gave a guest lecture, years and years ago when I was in grad school. On bioelectrics and radiation. It … it really helped me narrow down my dissertation.”

Bruce has given a lot of guest lectures at a lot of graduate schools. Hearing her mention it unlocks the academic part of his brain that he didn’t realize he’d ever put away. He even sort of recognizes her, maybe, but he feels so, so bad now, in this critical moment, that he hadn’t taken the time to learn every student’s name.

“I … thank  you?” He quints a little, trying to summon an something appropriate, “… Carolyn?”

“Kim … berly. Kim.”

“Kim,” Bruce nods, like he’d known that. He glances at the ticket in her hand, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t look very sure. He can hear Tony jeer in the back of his mind that 'Puny Banner has fans too'. “You need it more than I do.”

He really, really does.

Kim goes on, “And either way, even if it’s not for Avengers’ save-the-world type stuff, I already bought it. It’s non-refundable. And I … need to stay here with my family and make sure they’re safe, because — well, you probably saw, the aliens on the news again —”

He cuts her off, because it sorts of sounds like she’s working herself up, “If you’re sure. Thank you, Kim.”

Nodding fervently, she deposits the large ticket into his hands.

“Hey,” he chuckles, a little hesitant because he’s not sure how to say what he wants to say without coming off as creepy. “Feel free to, you know, shoot me an email or something, after this is over. If you’d like another set of eyes on your research, I guess.”

“Oh!” Kim’s eyes are wide. “Oh, wow, uh. Thanks.”

He clutches the ticket so hard that it crinkles a little. It’s hard to believe he’s gotten this lucky. “You’re welcome.”

Bruce doesn’t know a better way to close out the conversation. He’s sure Kim is very sweet, but it’s hard to forget that the time he’s spent here chatting is time he couldn’t really afford to lose, time he might’ve spent better on a bus headed upstate. Hell, Steve could already been there waiting — maybe he’s got a wizard on his side. One that didn’t shut him out and lock the door.

Kim’s still kind of staring at him, so Bruce settles for a nod and smile, a little wave. She returns it. Satisfied he didn’t leave some kind of conversation hanging, he tunes back into the heated discussion at the counter.

“And what I’m saying, _sir_ , is that even with all these ‘credentials’, I have no way to tell if you actually are who you say you are.”

He can’t hear Rhodey, but he can imagine his response is an exasperated, “ _You don’t have to evaluate them, that’s why we have credentials_ ,” or something along those lines. Being good at arguing with little tolerance for bullshit must come from years and years of being friends with Tony Stark. Bruce doesn’t think he’s hit quite that point yet.

The clerk sees he’s got Bruce attention again, pointedly glancing behind him to emphasize how much things are being help up. Bruce looks over his own shoulder, but sees that everyone else has already abandoned this line for other counters. Even Kim is gone.

Bruce lets out a one-beat chuckle. He’s missed New York.

“Can I — I’ll just take the phone back,” he holds his hand out to the clerk, “Please.”

He gets it back with an accompanying scoff. Rhodey is still squawking — he hears him say “ _—state of emergency_ ”.

But before Bruce can put the phone to his ear, the clerk’s clocked the ticket in his hand. “How did you get that?”

“Uh.” Bruce doesn’t know what to say. What should he say? What should he do?

He bolts. Turns right on his heel and speedwalks away — he’s not running, because _running_ is suspicious, but he does kick up the speed a little when he hears a sharp “Hey!” from the desk.

The ticket is very crumpled in his hand, but he can still make out the bus number and the little barcode. Oh, shit, are they going to need to scan it? Do they need I.D.? They’re going to scan it and see that he’s quite obviously not a woman named Kim, and he’s going to be right back where he started.

By the time he’s hoofed it out to the bus bay, he’s almost out of breath. He doesn’t have his goddamn glasses, so he can’t see the goddamned signs and instead just goes up to the first driver he sees by the nearest coach. “Hi. Albany?”

The driver doesn’t even look up from his phone, just jabs his thumb in the direction of … every other bus. Anger boils in Bruce’s gut, because apparently direct verbal directions are just too much effort.

In a stroke of pure luck, he hears a voice call from down the line — “Boarding for Albany!”

Thank fucking _Christ_. Bruce half-jogs down to that driver, holding his ticket up like he’s aiming to hail a taxi.

Ugh, a taxi! That would’ve been much easier than whatever haphazard plan’s going to end up getting him to the Complex. It would’ve been expensive, but still. Easier.

“Hi. Albany?” Bruce pants again, joining the end of the remarkably short line.

“I sure hope so,” jokes the guy in front of him, “Otherwise we’re both going to the wrong place.”

It’s not as comforting as the guy probably thinks it is. Suddenly remembering the phone in his hand, he slams it against his ear, “Hey, yeah, I’m sorry —”

“ _—you still there?_ ”

Bruce tries to force the words out, but it sounds like a wheeze. “I — oh, wow—”

“ _Bruce?_ ”

“I — I just did more cardio than I’ve ever done in my life, I think,” he says, and immediately presses the phone to his shoulder because the driver is holding out her hand for his ticket. It’s the moment of truth. Rhodey can wait.

As Bruce hands her his ticket, he tries his hardest not to seem suspicious. Again, he’s never been good at deception, subterfuge, espionage — actually, as far as the Avengers go, he Hulk are each pretty singularly talented. Radiology and … smashing things, respectively. So more than anything, he really just _hopes_ —

“You’re good, sir, go right ahead.” The driver waves him on, distant but professional. Bruce looks down to see a hole punched in his ticket as it’s handed back to him.

Relief splashes over him like a bucket of ice-cold water. The analyst in him wants an explanation — the system is down, the barcode is actually for something else, et cetera. He nearly forgets to actually board the bus, tripping up the first of the three stairs and stumbling his way through the rest.

Halfway down, he spots a seat with no one next to it — not that it’s a very crowded bus, but the promise of a drive free of small talk is actually exciting. Bruce doesn’t think he’s in any sort of state to talk to a normal person anymore.

The phone is vibrating against his hand. It’s hard to see the tiny screen, the letters are small and so, so blurry, but they’re letters. It looks like it could say RESTRICTED.

Oh.

He answers it.

“ _Bruce, what the hell —_ ”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to hang up, I just got on the bus —”

“ _Jesus, man I thought something was chasing you_ .” The admonishment is probably the closest to relief that he’ll probably get from Rhodey — and it only lasts a second. “ _You were that out of breath from catching a bus_?”

“Yeah, well, desperate times.” Bruce doesn’t laugh. He’s hunched against the window, speaking lowly. “We’re all boarded, should be pulling out shortly.”

“ _Alright, I’ve got you. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s working on an E.T.A_.”

“Cool.” He goes to check his watch until he remembers he doesn’t have it. The edges of his jacket cuffs are frayed and torn, like he went toe to toe with a cheese grater.

As ridiculous as it sounds, that could’ve happened and Bruce would be none the wiser. He’s lost two whole years of his life, twenty four months, one hundred and four weeks — he stops himself from doing the rest of the math. Rhodey is still on the line, but quiet, and the silence seems to weigh heavy and thick around both of them. In all honesty, they weren’t that close of friends, before. They certainly weren’t strangers — they were invited to the same dinners, they were both recruited by Pepper to track Tony down and drag him onto conference calls. Sometimes they even consulted in the same operations.

Bruce and Rhodey were on different edges of the same circle — Tony’s circle. Rhodey said it best, when he would half-jokingly accuse Tony of collecting people that were interesting to him, regardless of how each of them got along with anyone else. Tony could never really see what he meant, and most of the time would brush it off as “keeping his enemies closer”. If that was true, Justin Hammer would’ve been first in line for a top-floor Tower suite.

Back then, Rhodey wasn’t even a full-fledged Avenger. Well, he was, on paper and in name, but his standing with the Air Force and his role as liaison made any of his interference in “private vigilante activity” very … complicated.

Not for the first time, Bruce desperately wants to ask how much two years have changed. When he left — when _Hulk_ left, he certainly didn’t have a say in that — the Complex was just being completed. He hasn’t even slept there yet.

Panic seizes his gut, when he wonders if it’s even still standing. If it wasn’t, Steve would’ve said something, right? Or Rhodey would’ve?

“ _Bruce?_ ”

“Yeah?”

“ _You sure you’re doing okay?_ ”

He doesn’t know how to answer that, so he settles for, “I will be, once this is all over.”

“ _The bus ride, or the apocalypse_?”

That gets a little chuckle out of him. It’s easy to laugh at dark things, makes them more palatable, more distant. “The Apocalypse” and “The End of the World”. All of it sounds so serious.

“ _Listen, man, you’ve got two and a half more hours. Try and get a nap in, stay on the line, I’ll wake you up when you’re close, try and figure out some next steps_.”

He yawns at just the suggestion of a nap, and Rhodey’s right, he is tired. “What, you gonna break out the bugle call?”

“ _Get some sleep, smartass_.”

 

 

  


There’s sand between his toes. It’s dark, pitch-black, but it smells thick and wet like fog. He knows he’s not wearing a shirt from the way a cold breeze dances across his shoulders, and he shivers instinctively.

A thrum builds in his ears. First low and distant, but it grows closer and louder, turning up the volume on television static until it’s not his ears ringing anymore — it’s screams, shouts, thousands and thousands of people, a stadium, a city, a planet. Cheering.

Lights above him thunder on, one after another in a perfect circle far over his head. They’re too bright to look straight up — it makes his eyes water. He can’t see the crowd, but he knows they’re all there, can hear them, feel their expectant looks pressing down on him.

A chant rises from the roar. Thousands of voices, in a language he doesn’t recognize.

It’s an arena.

He’s frozen at the prospect of combat without the Hulk. And he knows he’s alone, can’t feel Hulk in his head or beating at his heart. No matter what he’s facing, he knows that on his own he stands no chance of winning.

Across the sand, two figures are bathed in hot light. Bruce doesn’t have his glasses, he’s too far away to see, but when one raises its hand — the hum of an arc reactor coaxes the whole crowd into silence.

Iron Man is blasting off the ground and turning in midair, rocketing back down with gravity and terminal velocity strongly in his favor.

The opponent raises their arms. They meet in a bright flash and a clang that reverberates in the stadium like a choir in an empty church.

Bruce is sitting in the stands now — around him, the benches are abandoned, thick with dust. His shirt is sticking to his back, and his glasses are digging into the bridge of his nose like he’s been wearing them too long.

The repulsors in Tony’s hands are whining as he tries to knock Steve flat on his ass — and it’s _Steve_ with his heels digging into the sand, straining against Tony’s attack with his mighty shield held high.

“It was probably inevitable.” Natasha is sitting to his right.

Bruce looks at her, and she looks how he remembers with red hair cropped to her chin, wavy at the ends. She’s not in uniform, not in body armor, not like Steve and Tony are.

He looks back to the arena.

Tony is flat on his back with Steve’s foot on his chest. They’re moving slowly, slow-motion, like they’re underwater or recorded on a tape Bruce is only watching at quarter speed. Steve drops to his knees. He reaches for Iron Man’s helmet while Tony desperately struggles to get out from under his weight.

 _He’s going to kill him_ , Bruce thinks.

At the same time, he hears Natasha murmur, “We were supposed to be better than this.”

“BOTH STUPID,” says Hulk. He’s on Bruce’s other side, so loud and so close and so sudden that Bruce startles. “TIN MAN STUPID. FLAG MAN STUPID.”

A hundred feet below them, Steve leans in close and pries off Tony’s faceplate with his bare hands.

“BANNER STUPID TOO.”

There’s a surprise.

“You’re all fools,” another voice rumbles, everywhere, directionless, like the stadium itself is going to open wide and swallow them all whole.

It’s a voice Bruce knows, deep in his bones. One that sends chills straight through him.

Hulk is gone. Natasha is too, because Bruce isn’t in the stands anymore. The stands are packed full above his head, jeering as he takes a shaky step towards Tony and Steve struggling in the center on the arena.

Then Tony and Steve are gone, between one blink and the next. The chant starts up around the stadium again. But it’s different this time, shorter, and soon those tens of thousands of spectators are chanting one name with one voice.

A towering figure, clad in gold armor, suddenly fills Bruce’s vision. He’s strides closer in all his terrifying glory, dragging something large through the sand behind him.

Bruce can’t move. He feels removed from his own body, watching from above while also seeing out from his own head as he stands paralyzed. The air and the sand are stinging his eyes, but he can’t close them, can’t look away as a body is thrown at his feet.

“A gift,” Thanos says, “and a warning.”

Without looking down, Bruce knows exactly who it is. He can picture the shorn hair, the kind smile, the missing eye. It’s not possible — gods can’t die. His throat is closing up, there’s no air, he tries and tries to breathe, to swallow, anything.

Thor’s one eye snaps open — his bloody hand shoots out to grab Bruce by the ankle and pull —

He gasps, and it’s musty. The left half of his face is cold, pressed against something flat, and he’s covered in clammy sweat all over. His heart is racing, rabbiting in his chest. Something gently taps his foot.

“You awake, pal? Last stop, you gotta get off.”

Bruce cracks his eyes open, one and then the other. His vision is blurry, a camera lens smeared in vaseline, but there’s someone in front of him in a uniform.

Tie, vest. Driver.

Bus.

He’s still on the bus.

Sitting up, he immediately scrambles to stand. It’s hard to breathe with his heart going so fast, but he thinks he stammers out an apology.

“You’re alright. Got everything you came on with? Know where you’re going next?”

No keys no wallet no glasses. He only had a phone, that’s it.

Bruce looks down to see the heavy little flip phone sitting on his seat. It’s hard to feel either of his hands.

The driver — a different driver than before — puts the phone in his jacket pocket for him and steps aside to let him off. “You be careful out there, alright?”

The goodbye is hesitant, but Bruce gives a shaky thumbs-up as he stumbles down the stairs. God, he must look crazy — but he just needs to get fresh air. That’s always helped before.

It’s still day, cloudy and cool in an Albany bus station as he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and tries not to hurl. Bruce breathes in and out through his nose, because opening his mouth feels like it could have dire consequences right now.

He hasn’t had an attack this bad in years. Since — since before Hulk. The accelerated heart rate alone would’ve usually sparked an Incident by now.

Dwelling on the implications makes him feel even more sick, so instead he tries to focus on breathing through it.

“Bruce, hey.” He hears Rhodey next to him, except it’s not over the phone. It can’t be over the phone, because the phone is still shut and in his pocket where the bus driver put it — so he must be hallucinating.

That’s a whole new level, even for him.

“Hey, breathe, man. I’m gonna touch you now, okay?”

Something hot grips his shoulder. He flinches away from it, chanting _not real not real not real_ to himself in his head.

“Alright, that’s fine.” God, it sounds just like Rhodey, like he’s right there. Bruce is breathing so fast, his heart is beating so fast, he wants to breathe through it but he’s pretty sure he’s only making it worse. “Can you look at me, at least? Open your eyes.”

He doesn’t want to, but he does.

Rhodey is right in front of him. Really, actually there, looking as earnest and calm as ever. “How about you take a deep breath?”

Bruce follows his advice. In through his nose, one two three, out through his mouth, one two three. He’s staring at Rhodey, he can’t look away because he’s real and there and not just a voice on the phone. Not some kind of specter of the past, not a figment of Bruce’s panicked imagination.

His voice shakes. “H-hey.”

“Hey,” Rhodey echoes. “You feel up to getting in the car?”

 _YES_ bubbles up in his throat, but it feels too much like nausea, so he clamps his mouth shut and nods.

“Alright. It’s right over here..”

Bruce takes another deep breath as he’s lead to a black Audi with tinted windows. He doesn’t know if it’s actually Rhodey’s or one of Tony’s personal fleet, but right now he doesn’t care. Mostly he’s just grateful for how close Rhodey thought to park.

Rhodey reaches to open the passenger side door for him, but Bruce actually gets there first. He murmurs a soft, “I’ve got it,” as an apology. Not one to be offended, Rhodey nods and makes his way over to the other side.

They don’t say anything as they get into the car. Bruce sits hunched forward, rubbing his face with his hands. The radio turns on with the engine, but Rhodey turns it right off again, which he’s immensely thankful for.

Long minutes pass as they put the bus station behind them. Bruce has never spent any significant time in Albany, though even he can tell it’s suspiciously empty — news of the attack in Manhattan spreads fast. He checks the clock on the dash. It’s been three hours since he’s last looked at a clock, then.

The news traveled normally, it’s just him that’s slow.

As they wait to turn onto an onramp, Bruce works up the courage to ask, “Can we —? How do you — the A/C?”

“Yeah, sure, here.” Rhodey hits the button without even looking at it. “Windows are unlocked too.”

Cool air gently dances across his face, and Bruce can feel the tension headache starting to unfurl behind his eyes — starting, because it probably won’t be completely gone until he can see the world clearly again. Still, it’s enough to take in another deep breath. One two three. Let it out.

He’s coming back down.

“How you feeling?” Rhodey eventually says.

It’s an easy question to ask, but a hard one to answer. He settles for a remarkably stable-sounding, “I don’t know. Better, I guess.”

“You sound better.” For a moment, Rhodey looks like he wants to say something else but thinks better of it.

Bruce watches him. Out of the corner of his eye, because it’s a tad subtler than outright staring. They’re not friends, he remembers, just colleagues. Different tables at the same dinner.

But Rhodey doesn’t look … how Bruce expected. There’s not a hint of caution or fear on his face, emotions Bruce is anticipating every time he gets too near the edge of his own control. He knows the other Avengers are scared of the Hulk — they certainly have a right to be — but Rhodey isn’t, not now. Bruce doesn’t remember telling him about Hulk’s self-imposed time-out. The optimist in him wants to think that it’s courage or even trust that he’s seeing in Rhodey right now, but the pragmatist knows better. Probably not outright deception, but there’s a strategic advantage to emotional neutrality — and James Rhodes is one of the Air Force’s key strategists, their answer to Steve Rogers before the Army’s supposed poster boy came back from the dead.

“Did you wanna talk about it?” Rhodey volunteers. It catches Bruce so off guard that all he can give in return is stunned silence. Honestly, he never would’ve expected anyone as stone-faced and steadfast as James Rhodes to be so — so understanding about this kind of thing. Rhodey glances at him, probably to check if he’s still with it, and offers, “Tony does, sometimes.”

Oh, Bruce knows that. It took him almost a dozen cafe trips to get Tony to comprehend that while Bruce cares about him deeply, he is a friend, and is therefore not a substitute for a trained mental health professional. In-depth knowledge of Hulk coping mechanisms does not qualify him to practice counseling or therapy of any kind.

“I … don’t even remember what it was. Some dream.”

“Bus travel’ll do that.” That way Rhodey says it makes Bruce think it was intended as a joke. By the time he’s reached that realization, it’s already fallen flat and they’ve backtracked into silence.

Trapped in a car like this, with a person Bruce assumes has so many answers, he bites down on his tongue to keep the questions from spilling out.

“So how’ve you been, then? _Where_ you been?”

“Uh, space.” A lot of places, therein. The idea of chronicling it makes his stomach hurt. “I was .. It was Hulk, most of the time.”

“But Hulk let you have a panic attack?”

Bruce doesn’t like calling it that — it makes him sound helpless, undermines his willpower, his control, both of which are things he values highly. “Yeah, I guess.”

To his credit, Rhodey seems to recognize his misstep and lets them fall back into silence. They pulls off the highway onto side streets, wide country roads with high speed limits. Bruce feels guilts that he’s not reciprocating more, not when Rhodey’s trying again and again to bridge the gap. He doesn’t even know who else is left — it might just be them.

Rhodey clears his throat again. “Steve called. I talked to him.”

Even without any context, Bruce knows from his tone how serious a step that must’ve been. “Oh?”

“They’re en route from Scotland. He’s bringing Vision, and his — his team. Natasha, Sam, Wanda. You might not remember her, she’s —”

“—the Sokovian girl?”

“Yeah, Joined up, then split.”

“Seems to be a theme.” Even as he says it, he regrets saying it. Too heavy, too soon.

“Yeah.” Rhodey sighs. He comes to a complete stop in the middle of the road and turns onto an unmarked driveway without signaling. “Could be nice to have almost everybody back, though.”

“Could be?” Almost?

“Tony’s going to be okay, right?”

“He went blasting off, after that wizard—” Bruce sees a nearly imperceptible change in Rhodey’s face them, from what to what he doesn’t know. He only sees it in the way his jaw is set, something about the way he’s staring straight ahead at the Complex gate as they drive up to it. “I mean, he’s got that nanotech suit now. He’s Tony, he’ll be fine.”

Putting the car into park at the gate. Rhodey rolls down the window for a thumbprint scan, a retina scan, an ear scan, and a verbal access code. Once they’re through, Bruce tries to start another conversation up. “How’s Pepper?”

“She called too. Happy is the only thing stopping her from mobilizing NASA.”

“Are she and Tony still …?”

“Engaged, now.”

“No kidding.”

“You’ve been on the guest list since day one.”

Bruce can’t help but smile at that, just a little bit.

“Better not’ve made me late for my all-important conference call.” Rhodey chuckles as he pulls right up to the front door and puts the car in park.

“Who with?”

“Thunderbolt Ross.”

Maybe he sees Bruce grip the door a little too tightly as he gets out. Maybe he doesn’t. He definitely doesn’t, as Bruce closes the door behind him, because Rhodey’s only just got his door open and is hoisting himself up by the safety bar above the door, exiting one leg at a time.

Half-unconsciously and half-motivated by morbid curiosity, Bruce makes his way around the front of the car.

When he sees the braces, his heart sinks into his stomach.

“It’ll park itself,” Rhodey says when he sees him staring. Sure enough, the car backs up, puts itself back in drive, and swerves around them on its way towards the garage entrance.

“What …” It’s all Bruce can force out, and it’s not about the car. He wishes he’d known. He wishes he didn’t have to. Deep in his soul, he knows this is related to the breakup, without even asking.

“It was a while ago.” Crossing his arms, Rhodey shrugs like he’s just got a schoolyard scrape. “Can’t be running any marathons without some serious hardware, but hey, parking.”

“Was it —”

“—an accident.” He say with finality, starting to lead the way inside. “You’ve got all your accesses back. I’d give you the tour, but …”

“Yeah,” Bruce says lamely.

“Just early enough to make Ross try to ream me for slacking off.”

Like that, Rhodey turns on his heel and goes. He doesn’t leave behind any impression of how he felt about the conversation.

Bruce takes another deep breath. Being here, physically standing in an empty lobby that should be bustling, knowing this is the house the Avengers built for their future, together, only to divide themselves up instead — it’s painful. It might just be him and Rhodey here now. He could ask F.R.I.D.A.Y., but he doesn’t want the confirmation.

Instead, he wanders the empty halls. He counts.

Himself, minus Hulk.

Rhodey.

Vision.

Steve.

Sam — that must be Sam Wilson, Steve’s friend from D.C.

The Sokovian girl.

Natasha.

It’s going to have to be enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery Warnings:  
> > Bruce briefly considers putting himself in a life-threatening situation in order to draw out Hulk. He does not act on it.  
> > Bruce has a nightmare in which Thor's dead body is presented to him. This is only one paragraph and also a dream. Thor does not appear in this fic, nor is his life ever directly threatened within.  
> > Bruce has a severe panic attack, including nausea. He works his way through it with help from Rhodey, although he does express a very unhealthy viewpoint regarding his anxiety (namely, that he thinks it makes him weak, which is not true. No one is weaker or lesser for having an anxiety, mood, or mental health disorder; these are diseases that can debilitate folks' abilities to live their lives, and surviving despite them is anything but a sign of weakness). 
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, please consider reblogging/retweeting on [tumblr](https://vextant.tumblr.com/post/185442984226/divided-we-stand-art-insideoutnose-words) or [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/vvextant/status/1137200003661926400). Please also show some love for the fantastic insideoutnose, who is such a wonderful and kind collab partner!


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